Effects of total parenteral nutrition on rat enteric nervous system, intestinal morphology, and motility.
Author
Summary, in English
Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) is often crucial for patients not being able to feed enterally or having intestinal absorptive deficits. Enteral nutrition is, however, frequently regarded vital for maintaining functional and structural intestinal integrity. The aim of this study was to investigate possible effects of TPN on rat distal small intestine compared to enterally fed identically housed controls, regarding the enteric nervous system (ENS), motility in vitro, and morphology. This study shows that motor responses evoked by electrical stimulation or exposure to vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), pituitary adenylate cyclase activating peptide-27 (PACAP-27), and nitric oxide (NO) donor were unchanged. By using immunohistochemistry, the numbers of submucous (P < 0.05) and myenteric (P < 0.05) nerve cells were found to increase, expressed as numbers per unit length. The percentage of neurons expressing VIP, PACAP-27, NO-synthase, and galanin remained unchanged, however. By in situ hybridization the number of submucous neurons expressing neuropeptide Y-mRNA was found to decrease (P < 0.05); the other populations were unaltered. Morphometry revealed an increased submucosal thickness (P < 0.05), while intestinal circumference markedly decreased (P < 0.0001) in TPN-treated rats. In conclusion, TPN treatment resulted in reduced intestinal circumference leading to condensation of enteric neurons. No marked changes in neurotransmitter expression of the enteric neurons or in motor activity were noted.
Department/s
- Neurogastroenterology
- Surgery (Lund)
- Islet cell physiology
Publishing year
2005
Language
English
Pages
187-193
Publication/Series
Journal of Surgical Research
Volume
124
Issue
2
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Surgery
Keywords
- plasticity
- motility
- morphology
- ENS
- intestine
- rat
- TPN
Status
Published
Research group
- Neurogastroenterology
- Islet cell physiology
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1095-8673